In the Hour of Victory

The greatest victories from the British Navy’s golden age, told through never-before-seen letters from the officers themselves.

When Napoleon eventually died in exile, the Lords of the Admiralty ordered that the original dispatches from seven major fleet battles—The Glorious First of June (1794), St Vincent (1797), Camperdown (1797), The Nile (1798), Copenhagen (1801), Trafalgar (1805), and San Domingo (1806)—should be gathered together and presented to the nation. These letters, written by Britain’s admirals, captains, surgeons, and boatswains and sent back home in the midst of conflict, were bound in an immense volume, to be admired as a jewel of British history. 

Sam Willis, one of Britain's finest naval historians, stumbled on this collection by chance in the British Library in 2010 and soon…